One of my favorite days of the year on Twitter is Super Bowl Sunday. A bunch of commercial watchers tweet the brand bowl, some of us are clearly marcom folks and others are not. I tweeted last night with the #brandbowl hashtag but there were so many hashtags floating around that I have to plead: Can we just pick one?
Instead of running down some commercials as I have in the past, I have some observations on the social media side.
1. I thought the hashtagged commercials had disappeared… then sometime during the second quarter the hashtags returned. Aside from the #EsuranceSave30, how many of the hashtags were really used? And what is with the changing hashtag for CarMax? #slowclap to #slowbark? If it was an attempt at getting something animal in, I’m not sure it was terribly successful.
2. People who want to act like they have authority to comment on the ads should probably watch the ads and tweet the right brand when they praise or criticize them. I saw a lot of car company names used interchangeably.
3. I noticed that a lot of brands still don’t *get* social media, the internet and human behavior in general. For example, hashtags don’t have spaces and if you have to the audience to make you viral, you’re doing it wrong.
4. Some brands did Twitter great! Tide was rocking the Twittersphere with it’s Vine videos throughout the whole game. JcPenney is probably firing someone today for drunk- or fake-drunk-tweeting and Purell took a 100% unnecessary and not classy jab at the Browns and Browns fans. (story here, since the tweet has been removed.) What’s worse is the Purell is made by GOJO Industries, which happens to be headquartered here in Northeast Ohio. Another note, if you tweet for a brand during the Super Bowl (or really ever), never do it from an app on your phone, never do it from a bar and never do it while intoxicated. Ever.
5. I got retweeted by John Legere. That’s all.
I tweeted a lot about sports last night in comparison to last year. I’m sorry guys. I’m not good at the sports thing.
Some closing thoughts:
- I’m relieved that the GoDaddy commercials had women wearing clothes. It’s about five(?) years too late. But some drunk guy named Ted was wondering if that woman ever worked for him.
- GoldieBlox is a great company trying to inspire girls to go into engineering. I liked them before the Super Bowl and I like them more now.
- Seriously folks, go adopt a pet. Let me say that again, adopt a pet. Shelters not stores.
- If you took to Twitter to ask who a brand is by their name, they spent their money well because next time you see their name, you’ll recognize it. (WeatherTech anyone?)
- Making things here in the U.S. was a theme again this year, for which I’m very pleased.
- Brands abandoned Facebook in their commercials which is probably a good thing. People don’t live Facebook commercials and they shouldn’t live-Facebook the game. It’s annoying.
What did you think of the ads and how brands conducted themselves online last night?
I actually didn’t watch at all this year! I usually at least turn it on for commercials, but I was all caught up in reading last night and it just didn’t happen.
That said, I think U2’s thing was incredibly well done (free new song, $ goes to charity).
Of those that I saw in between the chaos of looking after two young kids, I have to say that I enjoyed the simplicity and innocence of it all (or most of them). The MetLife ad with the Peanuts characters (which I think only ran before the game) was truly one of my favorites.
Then again, had I been in the company of a different crowd, my choices may have been different.
i actually liked the commercials this year. for the most part, they were tasteful and touching or funny. i was kind of impressed. it seemed like we were headed for another year of gross ads after the past few years.